


river holds the moon

by skyward_bloom



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Blindness, Canon Disabled Character, Chronic Pain, Feelings, Guilt, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Post-Episode Ignis Verse 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-02
Updated: 2020-07-02
Packaged: 2021-03-05 04:48:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25028782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skyward_bloom/pseuds/skyward_bloom
Summary: And that’s not how it is for Ignis, not at all. Eos is saved, Noctis is alive, and Ignis is free to touch him like this, feel the soft thundering of his heartbeat, be cared for by him. There is nothing to regret in a world that allows all of this to be true.
Relationships: Noctis Lucis Caelum/Ignis Scientia
Comments: 24
Kudos: 75





	river holds the moon

**Author's Note:**

> > Everything you needed to know I told you without speaking. I watched you the way someone who has never known fire watches the grey dawn ignite. I touched you the way a wild animal walks into a thresher. I held your name in my mouth the way the river holds the moon.
> 
> —Natalie Wee 

“Sorry,” Noctis murmurs—not for the first or second time, or even the dozenth, but some iteration beyond counting. Ignis has stopped keeping track. Had to, or it would be maddening.

The words are accompanied by a light touch, a gentle hand cupping Ignis’s cheek, thumb nudging the edge of his visor. He can imagine the sort of tragic, contrite look Noctis is probably giving him, eyebrows knit and blue eyes shining, lower lip sucked in childishly in a reverse pout. The palm touching his skin is cool and dry and a little rough. Ignis remembers when those hands were still soft from so much pampering, when they were delicate and manicured, and their grasp was always tentative, uncertain, frightened. Noctis approached affection like a skittish creature, an animal in want of touch but still wary of it. He doesn’t seem to bother worrying over things like that anymore. Dying and un-dying will do that to a person.

It helps, too, that they don’t have to worry about prying eyes here in the study. That it’s the king’s preferred hiding place is an open secret, of course, but the staff all know not to bother him when the door’s just barely ajar; know he leaves it like that for Ignis, the only welcome intruder, who makes a beeline for this corner room whenever he realizes Noctis isn’t in his quarters. It’s on the same floor, down the hall and around a corner. Easy to escape to and easy to find. And now they’re sitting on the carpet, behind the sturdy wooden desk, like children with a secret.

Ignis sighs and covers Noctis’s hand with his own. Something changes in the other man’s breath, but Ignis doesn’t know what it means; just hears the sharper, shorter intake and how it shudders out afterward.

“You’ve nothing to be sorry for,” says Ignis. “I told you to stop apologizing.”

As if to justify what he said before, or maybe just explain it, Noctis replies, “Your scars are bothering you again.”

It’s true. There’s no point in denying it. The burns on Ignis’s face and arms and chest, remnants of holy fire, have been throbbing dully, aching like a bruise under constant prodding. It’s been going on for days now, on and off, some moments worse than others. It’s inevitable that someone would have noticed; less surprising still that it was Noctis.

“It’s manageable,” says Ignis, because it is.

Noctis starts to say, “If I knew this would happen,” but Ignis cuts him off quickly.

“What would you have done differently, Noct?” He squeezes Noctis’s hand, rubs his thumb over scarred, callused knuckles. “Chosen not to save the world?” He offers the barest smile, because it’s easier than scolding him.

“No,” Noctis grumbles. “But I could—there must have been something, Iggy. _Something_ I could’ve done.”

They’ve talked about this so many times by now, and in so many ways. The long and short of it: Noctis had brought the Dawn, and in that instant all the magic of the world was undone, from the armory where they kept their weapons to the flasks of spells Noctis had conjured, the potions he’d enchanted, the small few miracles he’d performed. The wounds Ignis had received from the wrath of the Kings of Lucis, healed so many years ago by the power of sheer desperation, had reappeared, reopened, formed anew. And just as quickly, just as painfully as the first time, when he lay on that cold floor somewhere in Gralea and could just faintly hear the sounds of Noctis’s sobs over his own ragged breathing, he saw and felt the visible world burn away into nothing. And for all of this, Noctis—inexplicably, perplexingly—is _sorry_. Sorry he let it happen, or sorry he wasn’t stronger, or sorry that Ignis had wanted to die for him in the first place.

And Ignis tells him now, not unkindly, “Anything else you could have done would likely have been worse.” Because it’s true, and because Noctis needs to hear it and believe it.

Noctis flinches. Ignis feels it in his tensing arm. “Ignis,” he says, then starts on another syllable but lets it die on his tongue.

“Noct,” says Ignis. He lets his hand trail down to Noctis’s wrist and curls his fingers around it, pushing the cuff of the sleeve back. The drumming of a rapid pulse is blatant and strong under his fingertips, but he doesn’t know what to do with something like that, either. He’s still learning to tell the difference between symptoms of anxiety and anticipation. It isn’t clear to him, even now, if he makes Noctis nervous or _nervous_ in this kind of situation. He could guess, but it’s impossible to tell for certain when he has so little to work with. So he doesn’t know if he’s killing some sort of mood or just digging at a tender wound when he asks, “Do my injuries upset you?”

Noctis lets out a noise of surprise in his throat. “You being in pain upsets me,” he says, tone incredulous. “So yeah, kind of. But that’s it.”

For a moment, Ignis frowns, unable to pinpoint why Noctis sounds so offended by the question, until he realizes how it could have come off: like he was asking if Noctis found him off-putting. It would be a ridiculous question, unbearably self-deprecating. Noctis has made it clear on more than one occasion that he isn’t put off by Ignis’s looks at all—much the opposite, in fact.

What comes to mind first and most vividly is a night when the four of them were having dinner together, and Gladiolus stopped mid-conversation to drawl, “You know, just ’cause he can’t see you staring doesn’t mean we don’t.”

Across the table, Prompto had snorted while Noctis sputtered incoherently.

When Ignis had turned his head toward Gladiolus, puzzled, the answer he got was an exasperated, “His Majesty hasn’t taken his eyes off you since we sat down.”

“That’s not true,” Noctis said defensively, his voice shooting up an octave. “I’m—I just—I was spacing out, thinking about… politics.” It was a weak excuse, and he sounded very much like he knew it, trailing off a bit toward the end.

“It’s ’cause you took off your visor, Iggy,” said Prompto with a grin in his voice. “He thinks you look all rugged and dreamy.”

“No I don’t,” Noctis lied unconvincingly.

Ignis blinked, too confused and disarmed to even be flattered. “Do I?” he asked. He’d only taken off his visor because the food gave off so much steam, and even though visibility didn’t pose a problem for him, he still didn’t care for the way they fogged over. It had felt like the bridge of his nose was sweating.

Gladiolus grunted, gulping down a probably large bite of something or other. “Remember who you’re talking to,” he said, mouth still audibly a bit full. “Nothing more bad-ass than a few scars, if you ask me.”

“And some of your hair got loose,” said Prompto. “ _Super_ dreamy.”

Rather than denying any part of that, Noctis just said, flustered, “I’m happy to see you, okay? Reconstruction’s been a fucking mess.”

“It has,” Ignis agreed, not addressing anything that was or wasn’t said about scars or dreaminess. All of that could wait. He felt a little pleased in spite of himself, though. “And I daresay we’ve done a rather poor job of making time for anything outside of our work.”

“Speak for yourself,” muttered Gladiolus, before launching into his many grievances about wedding planning.

Later, when Noctis and Ignis walked back together to the Citadel, a retinue of guards a bit ahead of them and more just behind, Noctis settled a hand on Ignis’s elbow, guiding him along in the least presumptuous, least obstructive way possible. It might have been more for Noctis’s benefit anyway, the casual touch, but having a point of contact allowed Ignis to worry less about veering off to the side degree by embarrassing degree or bumping into his friend by accident. At that point it was all still new enough to him that he had to think about these things consciously, make an effort to do everything he did as his body learned how to navigate a strange world.

“Ah,” said Ignis, “thank—”

And Noctis had just blurted clumsily, “It’s still weird seeing you without glasses or anything and I forget how your face looks on its own sometimes so I get a little freaked out, but it’s—it’s nice. You look… younger. Less serious.” After a pause, he added, quieter, “And Prompto was right. I mean, you look good, Iggy. Just—yeah. Really good.”

There have been countless moments in Ignis’s life where he’s been struck violently with the sudden desire to pin Noctis down and kiss the breath out of him, taste his laughs and sighs, sink down into his body. This was just one of many. But it was the first time he realized that Noctis might actually _want_ him to. He felt Noctis’s awkward grip wrinkling the jacket of his suit, and the words had been dripping with embarrassment, bringing to mind an image of a younger Noctis, pink-faced, gaze shy and evasive. They had an audience, though, a safeguard against either of them doing anything they maybe definitely shouldn’t, even if they wanted to.

Still, Ignis couldn’t help the smile that sprang to his lips, or the flare of warmth in his chest. “Kind of you to say,” he said, inclining his head.

And Noctis said, still embarrassed, “I’m not saying it just to say it. You’re—” then cut off, muttering, “Never mind.”

In the present, Ignis isn’t concerned over how he looks to Noctis on a superficial level. He knows Noctis’s feelings on that, and it’s beside the point anyway; they’re talking about Noctis’s misplaced guilt, and how he won’t let go of something that he had no power to affect. And it’s not only frustrating for how unreasonable and baseless it is, but for how it makes Ignis feel like he’s being pitied, viewed as something that’s broken, _fixable_. Like his blindness and the periodic ache of his still-healing wounds is all a blemish on their happy ending. And that’s not how it is for Ignis, not at all. Eos is saved, Noctis is alive, and Ignis is free to touch him like this, feel the soft thundering of his heartbeat, be cared for by him. There is nothing to regret in a world that allows all of this to be true.

But it wouldn’t do any good to be angry at Noctis for something like this, because he knows where it’s coming from. Knows that Noctis had to hear his own father say that the marilith’s attack could have been prevented, that Noctis should never have been hurt, that he shouldn’t have _needed_ to go through physical therapy and learn to walk again and just accept that he had a semi-permanent limp that would make itself known at the least convenient times. He’s been taught that there’s always someone at fault for things like this, someone who didn’t try hard enough. And even though he’s never said as much, he probably agreed with his father: It _could_ have been prevented. Noctis _shouldn’t_ have gone through this. Every time Noctis grunts in discomfort while getting up from his seat, or asks reluctantly for the cane he’s taken to using more and more often, Ignis wonders if he resents his father just a little. If he does, of course Ignis’s situation would bother him; he must think Ignis feels the same.

It’s something they should talk about. Noctis will have to learn, slowly, that none of this is his fault, that neither of them has to fret over useless regrets. It will take time. These things always do. And they have that time, luckily; they can afford to take things slow and heal at their own pace.

“Believe me when I say, Noct,” says Ignis, “that pain or no, I wouldn’t trade the life I have for anything.”

“Anything,” Noctis echoes skeptically. “You really wouldn’t change a thing, Iggy?”

Ignis hums. “Well.” Making a decision at last, he turns his head very slightly, brushing his lips to Noctis’s hand. He knows this time exactly what the sound of breath catching means. He murmurs, “One or two things, perhaps.”

He hears the soft _oh_ that Noctis breathes out, feels the shocked and uncertain twitch of his hand. Then it moves and Noctis’s thumb touches the corner of Ignis’s mouth, presses along the edge of his lower lip. It doesn’t spark any sort of fire inside of Ignis, to be touched like this and feel the intensity of all of Noctis’s attention and desire, because the culmination of fifteen years of adoration can only ever be gentle, quiet, right. It settles over Ignis peacefully, comfortable and warm.

It’s more abrupt for Noctis, who trembles as he says, “I’m going to kiss you,” and then, after pausing just long enough to give Ignis time to object if he wants—time that Ignis fills with a soft chuckle—does.

They kiss, in the back of the corner study that Noctis escapes to when everything starts to feel suffocating, where only Ignis is welcome, because everyone else makes Noctis feel like he has to be someone and do something more than he already is. They kiss, and Noctis runs a hand through Ignis’s hair while Ignis clutches at the front of the king’s shirt, disheveling each other gingerly. And there’s a twinge of discomfort along Ignis’s sternum and left shoulder and around his eye, that touched-bruise feeling, a sort of tightness along his skin, but it doesn’t manage to distract Ignis from the tender heat of Noctis’s mouth.

There are exactly five laws that say they can’t do what they’re doing, and Ignis says as much once Noctis pulls away, to which Noctis replies with a huff, “Imagine telling the guy who died to save Lucis that he can’t make out with his advisor.”

It’s hardly _making out,_ what they’re doing, but it’s a fair point anyway. And it’s not like Ignis was trying to argue or deter him; it was just an acknowledgment of a technicality. “We’ve earned a bit of leeway, I suppose,” says Ignis.

“Just a little,” says Noctis with an undercurrent of amusement. Then he sighs, and it’s a happy sigh, his breath tickling against Ignis’s skin before he leans in to capture his mouth again.

When Ignis donned the Ring of the Lucii and called on the power of kings, a wild, impossible energy thrummed in him, like all of creation had erupted inside him at once and made him absolute. And with it came the agony of being undone, of being everything and nothing in one moment, outside of himself and the world. But before he’d been unmade, Ignis felt invincible in the way only a being of rage can be. He was power and more power and devastation, and he could do _anything,_ but would settle for pure and utter ruin, because that was what a world without Noctis deserved. He thinks right now, though, that he had it wrong before—that it wasn’t until he felt the clumsy clack of teeth in a too-earnest, years overdue kiss that he could possibly know what it meant to be a force of nature, to be indestructible.

He feels Noctis move a hand down to touch the frame of his visor, then hears, “Can I?”

It’s dark in the room, or at least dim enough that Ignis can’t tell the difference. He says, “Of course,” and lets go of Noctis’s shirt, smoothing his hand over it as an afterthought in a vain effort to combat all the wrinkling.

Noctis takes the visor off of him carefully, then pulls back for a moment. There’s the echoing clatter of it being set fumblingly on top of the desk, which is a bit inconvenient, but this is far and away the wrong time to complain about things like that.

There’s a moment of silence while Noctis looks at him, touches him carefully, brushes stray pieces of hair back from his face and just traces fingers along the curves and angles of his bones, taking care to avoid the scar over his left eye. Ignis would tell him that contact doesn’t hurt it at all, because all the pain is just the residual burn of old magic and not from any normal, understandable source, but he doesn’t want to break whatever trance Noctis has fallen into. He stays silent, waits, listens to the sound of Noctis’s breathing, takes in the barely-there smell of the aftershave that Noctis thinks, mistakenly, is very mature and sophisticated. It’s just a bizarre combination of sweet and woodsy smells, like cheap flowers and wet moss, bordering on cloying. Before, it was fine for Noctis to make whatever ridiculous choices he wanted with his personal hygiene, but if they’re going to be in a relationship—and presumably they are, or this would all be going very differently—then sacrifices will have to be made for the sake of Ignis’s sensitive nose.

Then Noctis stops. Framing Ignis’s face with both his hands, he says, “When I was seventeen, I woke up one day and walked into the kitchen, and when I saw you I realized you were the most beautiful person in the world.” He says it without pausing for breath, rapid and self-conscious, like he doesn’t even know if he should admit it. “And I freaked out a little, and you asked if I was sick ’cause I was just… standing there, losing my mind over your nose and your forearms or whatever, and then I ran to the bathroom and made myself puke out of, I dunno, sheer force of will, because I couldn’t deal with it.”

Ignis raises his eyebrows. “Really.”

“And you offered to stay and take care of me, because you’re you, but I forced you out of the apartment so I could have a meltdown and jerk off. But that’s not—I had an actual point,” says Noctis, flustered. “What I mean is—you’re still so beautiful I don’t really know what to do about it. Like I’m still this stupid teenager who’s realizing he’s gay for the first time.”

The endearing sort of anxiousness in his tone, more so than the actual words, has Ignis’s mouth pulling into a fond grin. “Noct,” he says.

“And I’m not just trying to say you’re hot, it’s—you are, but that’s not what I mean,” Noctis continues with that same nervous energy. “I’d still feel like this even if you didn’t look like a—like a fucking model or something. I just need you to know that, Iggy.”

“You realize there are more straightforward ways of telling a person that you’re in love with them,” Ignis says dryly.

“I didn’t—well.” Noctis lets out a sheepish chuckle. When he pulls his hands away, Ignis reaches up to catch them in his own, keeping him from retreating out of embarrassment. “I guess that is what I meant, huh?”

“Rather transparently,” says Ignis.

Noctis makes a hesitant noise. “I thought for a while that things were different for you,” he says. “I knew you cared about me, but I didn’t think you had the same kind of feelings I did. Brotherly, maybe. Like Gladio,” he adds.

“It may have turned to that eventually,” says Ignis. “I hoped it would, rather. It seemed easier than the alternative—pining uselessly.”

“So you didn’t know I liked you.”

“I… never tried very hard to find out,” he admits. “If there were signs, I didn’t want to look for them.”

“There were,” says Noctis. “I didn’t hide it very well. The guys made fun of me for it sometimes, but they knew things were, uh, complicated. So they kept quiet, mostly.”

They hadn’t made fun of Ignis, though he knows he hadn’t been very discreet, either. But maybe they would have felt bad, poking fun at someone for loving a man who was soon to be married. Or worse: loving a man fated to die. It probably wasn’t funny to them at all.

But it’s different now. They’ll call attention to Noctis making eyes at Ignis from across a table, because it’s finally safe to do that; nobody’s dying, and nobody’s promised to anyone else, and it’s comical to see Noctis fawn obliviously over the man he loves who just as obliviously loves him back.

“I did let myself notice, after a time,” says Ignis. “Or perhaps you’ve been obvious enough that I couldn’t ignore it any longer.”

Noctis laughs. “I’m so obvious it’s _mortifying,_ ” he says. “Always have been, too. I remember—one time we were fighting killer bees in Cleigne, and you ran in front of me to shield me after I went in stasis. I should’ve been thinking about the fight, but you were so… tall. I just froze and made some kind of stupid noise and Prompto ran over because he thought I was hurt.”

“Odd that I didn’t go to you myself,” says Ignis.

“You were busy being really cool and acrobatic and doing flips and stuff,” says Noctis. “Because you’re a show-off.”

“Ah. Was I impressive and stylish, at least?”

“Very.” He can hear Noctis’s smile. “You always are, Specs.”

Ignis leans in just a bit. Noctis seems to take the hint, closing the gap between them and touching their lips so fleetingly together it’s like a whisper of a kiss, an echo. Ignis presses forward to kiss him firmly. It’s going to take a long time, he thinks, for him to get tired of this.

He says against Noctis’s mouth, “You’re rather stunning yourself.”

“Yeah?” Noctis breathes. “What do you like about me?”

“You’re skilled. Clever. Loyal. Hard-working. Ah,” Ignis chides, drawing back at the slight brush of Noctis’s lips. “Do you want to hear the rest, or no?”

“Not if you keep talking like that,” Noctis mumbles.

“Like what?” asks Ignis.

“ _Seductively._ ”

“Seductively,” Ignis repeats, holding back a laugh. “Apologies. I’ll try not to inadvertently seduce you again, Majesty.”

Noctis just grunts discontentedly. Probably, Ignis thinks, at his title.

“Shall I go on?” Without waiting for an answer, Ignis says, “You’re kind. You feel very deeply, though you don’t like to show it. You love animals. You’re very easy to care about. And you’re gorgeous. I don’t have to see to know that.”

“Flatterer,” says Noctis, flustered in a quiet sort of way.

“I meant it the very same way you did, Noct,” says Ignis. “I have had the privilege of loving you for much of my life. I adore you in ways that go beyond description.”

There’s a pause. “Gods,” Noctis says hoarsely, “now I feel like a tool for talking about getting horny around you.”

“Would it help if I shared stories of my own?” asks Ignis.

“No,” comes Noctis’s immediate reply. “Wait. Maybe.”

Ignis fights back the sly grin threatening to rise to his mouth. “Perhaps we should take this conversation to your chambers, then.”

“Oh, um,” says Noctis, his voice nearly a squeak.

“Or we can wait, as long as you need,” Ignis tells him sincerely. “Being with you is enough.”

And Noctis sighs, tilting forward to bury his face in Ignis’s neck. His voice is muffled as he shyly tells Ignis what it is that he wants, and it’s as simple and sweet as it is intimate, but said with all the fearful reservation of someone who has no experience with desire. He shudders when Ignis’s fingers curl over the back of his neck. His cheek and open mouth are hot on Ignis’s skin.

“Certainly,” Ignis tells him with a full, fond heart. “Anything you want.” Then he adds, “Though we’ll have to get up from the floor, to start with.”

“We will,” says Noctis. “Just—just gimme a minute.”

There’s something in his tone, tense and hesitant, that makes Ignis ask, “Leg giving you trouble?”

After a pause, Noctis says, “Yeah. A little.”

“Would you like me to help you up?” asks Ignis.

“If I say no, I’ll just be a hypocrite, huh?” And he would, because they’ve all criticized Ignis for being too proud to ask for help—Noctis most of all, after so many years of Ignis caring for him selflessly. “Yeah, alright.”

They untangle themselves, and Ignis gets to his feet, hauling Noctis up afterward. Noctis stumbles a bit, hisses, breathes out a curse.

“Are you alright?” asks Ignis.

“Yeah, just stiff,” Noctis mumbles. “I’ll be fine.”

Ignis hums doubtfully, but doesn’t press him on it. Just holds out a hand and says, “My visor, if you don’t mind?”

Noctis hands it to him, but sloppily, so the first thing he touches is the lens, smudging his fingerprints all over it. It doesn’t matter overly much, but it’s the principle of the thing. Ignis sighs and just tucks it, folded, into his front pocket.

They walk down the hall, and Noctis leans into Ignis as they go, his limp more pronounced than usual. Ignis doesn’t comment on it, and doesn’t ask again if he’s okay. He gets an arm around Noctis’s waist and holds him securely, because that’s the sort of help Noctis will accept: the silent, easy kind that doesn’t make him feel like an imposition.

On their journey around the corner and down the hall they’re stopped by one member of Citadel staff, who only gets as far as a beseeching, “Your Majesty,” before Noctis cuts him off.

“Not right now, please,” Noctis says in a tired but smiling tone. “Ignis and I are calling it a night.”

“Oh,” says the man, who might be one of the housekeepers on this floor, though Ignis can’t quite tell. In that one syllable and the following pause, it’s like there’s a moment of realization, where he probably takes in the sight of the rumpled king tucked against the side of his advisor, who’s just as mussed.

They make it, finally, to Noctis’s old quarters, not the royal suite but the bedroom he kept when he was younger. It’s been remodeled, made more stately and regal and dignified, but some things are still the same as ever. Noctis kept his old bookcases, for one, the fine, smooth cherry wood riddled with scratches and dents from childhood antics. But the bed is large and unfamiliar. After they’ve kicked off their shoes, Noctis all but pulls Ignis down to the mattress, laughing against his jaw as he very nearly topples over.

Their clothes stay on. None of what they do now is dirty; they lie together on their sides, bodies close but not flush, touches loving but not lewd. Noctis’s hand (still rough, dry, callused, scarred) makes its way under Ignis’s shirt but goes no higher or lower than the planes of his abdomen, and the way he kisses is sweet and chaste. He lets out the smallest noises, hardly more than breath, when Ignis touches him in turn. The raw and unguarded way that he murmurs Ignis’s name is a greater intimacy than anything else Ignis has known in a relationship with another person.

And Noctis, who said that he only wanted to wake up next to Ignis, to fall asleep next to him and still see him there the next day—who wears unbearable aftershave, and still dresses in T-shirts every other day, and won’t eat decently unless he’s given a reason to—presses his forehead to Ignis’s and asks, drowsy or lovesick, “So, anything else you would change?”

There are plenty of things. Ignis wishes they had more time for their friends; wishes that reconstruction efforts weren’t so rushed; wishes Noctis would sleep more, worry less, take better care of himself. He also wishes, less reasonably, that all the people they’d lost along the way weren’t gone, and that the horrifying ten years of the long night hadn’t happened, and that Insomnia had never fallen in the first place. He wishes there had never been a prophecy. He wishes he had kissed Noctis under the stars when they were younger, like he wanted to so many times. He tries every day to shed the dense layers of his regret and stop grieving for things that are out of his control, but it’s hard. And he knows that Noctis knows this and understands. They mourn for so many of the same things, fruitlessly.

Ignis tells him, “Not in my life.” His fingers dance over the length of an old, gnarled scar on Noctis’s back, the ridge of it apparent even through fabric. “Not about you,” he says, then hesitates. “Though I’d like you to be kinder to yourself.”

“I’ll try,” Noctis mumbles. “But I’ll need your help.”

“I can give you that,” says Ignis.

Noctis says, “I know, Iggy,” and, “You always do,” and, “You know what I want from you?”

“Hm?”

“For you to be selfish,” says Noctis, “just once.”

“I believe I tried that,” says Ignis. “I said that I would trade the entire world for you not to die.”

“World’s still here,” Noctis points out.

“Indeed.” Ignis stops, just resting his hand on Noctis’s back. “The intention was there, at least.”

Noctis shifts and the mattress moves with him. He sounds more awake as he says, “Let’s try again. Be selfish, Ignis.”

As Ignis closes his eyes, the world goes very slightly darker. Somewhere in the distance he can hear construction equipment, the rumble of engines and beeping alarms. Sounds of progress. And he can hear, too, the soft, even cadence of Noctis’s breathing beside him, no longer heaving in ragged anticipation, but calm and assured. That’s a kind of progress also. The sheets are soft. Noctis is warm. Ignis finds his scars barely hurt.

“I’d like to take the day off work tomorrow,” he says quietly. “You will as well, of course. We’ll have a late start and take our breakfast in the gardens.”

“Then what?” asks Noctis.

“I’m not sure,” says Ignis, and finding, for once, that the uncertainty doesn’t bother him at all.

Noctis moves again. He brushes the lightest fingertips to Ignis’s cheekbone, right at the edge of the torn, burnt, always-hot scar. He says, so tenderly, “Whatever you want, Iggy,” which is ridiculous, because in his heart of hearts Ignis has only ever wanted him. He already has that. Regrets aside, he doesn’t think he needs anything else at all.

Then Noctis kisses him, and it’s gentle, and quiet, and right.

**Author's Note:**

> hello! this is my first ignoct, so i'm still a bit ???? and haven't quite figured out what i'm doing, oop. i just had this overwhelming, restless need to put a fic into the world where ignis was allowed to be blind and also happy, because a lot of fix-it fics (and... the actual literal canon) seem to decide he can't be both of those things simultaneously. so! i fucked around with a few things to make that happen. and then i realized no one could stop me from also writing noct as disabled so i did that too. ~~and then i proceeded to not do any proofreading whatsoever~~
> 
> anyway, i hope you liked it, or felt some kind of emotion as a result of it :')


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